Portrait of the Warrior as a Young Boy
by Alara Rogers
Summary: Talyn's mom doesn't understand him. Crais does.


Portrait of the Warrior as a Young Boy

by Alara Rogers

  


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**Summary:** Talyn's mom doesn't understand him. Crais does.   
**Author Notes:** This is my first Farscape fic, and I'm not entirely certain how well it works. Once my mind started going in this direction, it became obvious to me why Talyn willingly ran off with Crais, but I don't know how it works as a *story.*   
**Story Notes:** Spoilers: Halfway through Season 2 is good. You really should have seen, or know the plot of, "Mind the Baby". The one with the Plovakians is also good.   
**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these people.   
  


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My mother doesn't understand me. 

She loves me-- I know she loves me, unconditionally. Whatever I do, she'll love me. But she doesn't understand me, at all. She thinks she knows what's best for me, because it's what was best for her, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. She doesn't understand that I'm _different_ from her, from everyone like her. She doesn't really approve of the ways I'm different, either. 

My mother loves me, and wants the best for me. But there's not really any point to me listening to her. She doesn't know what it's like to be me; she doesn't know what I need, or what I want, or how I think. She gives me advice that basically has nothing to do with me or my life. And it's been that way practically since I was born. 

I used to think my mother was a big coward. If she gets into trouble, the only thing she knows how to do is run away. Real fast, but come on. Running away isn't exactly brave. I hate to run away. But my best friend told me that actually my mother is very brave, considering that she has no way of protecting herself except to run away, and she'll actually face danger sometimes if the stakes are high enough, like if she thinks she's protecting me, or her crew, who are mostly losers that get her into a lot of trouble. I never thought about it like that. My friend's right. My mother _is_ brave. But she's still weak, and I'm not. 

My friend says this is because I'm a warrior. Like him. 

He's been teaching me about what it means to be a warrior. Like, you can't blow people up until they attack you. That's what his people would have used me to do-- he says that that's what _he_ would have used me to do, until he actually met me and became my friend and took care of me. He says I changed his life. He used to be a rotten kind of guy who didn't understand about honor and the warrior's code-- all he understood was beating everyone who stood in his way, or even if they didn't. He says that I'm the best thing that ever happened to him. 

That's why he's my best friend. Because he changed, just because he loved me so much. Because he hasn't got anybody else, except me. 

I have another friend I really like a lot. She was my mother's friend, and after I was born, she helped take care of me along with my best friend. She has a lot of great advice, and I know she really cares about me. And she's a warrior, too. But she has some other friends-- my mom, and my mom's crew, and that guy she wants to mate with that my best friend doesn't really like because he killed my friend's brother by accident. So when it came time to pick who would be my best friend and live with me and help me and show me what it means to be a warrior, I didn't pick her. She had other people to care about. The guy I picked to be my best friend doesn't have anyone else but me. 

And he loves me the way my mother does. In a way he's kind of like my father. The male who impregnated my mother was never anywhere near her, never mated with her-- it was my friend who took that male's DNA and had people make changes to it so I'd be a warrior, and then put it in my mother so she would conceive me. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't exist-- or I might, as a weakling just like my mother, with no way to protect myself or anyone I cared about except by running. He thinks of me the way my mother does, except my mother wants to imprison me to keep me safe. As if I was ever born to be safe. My friend knows what it takes to keep a warrior as safe as he's going to get. He teaches me how to fight and when fighting is a bad idea. He teaches me to explore and understand what's around me. He knows the only safety for a warrior is to get stronger by training, not to stay with his mother and hide from anything bad. 

The only sad thing is that we don't get to spend much time with our other friend. My friend really likes her and would like to mate with her, and I wish we could spend more time with her, but she lives with my mother. And when we go to see them, my mother nags me with dumb advice and the rest of my mother's crew are mean to my friend. My friend says I shouldn't blame them for this too much because he used to be really mean to them, but I don't care. He's my friend _now_ and I don't appreciate them hurting him, whatever he did in the past. So we don't get to see my other friend very often. I wish she would come to live with us and mate with my friend. I think we could all be very happy if she did that. But since she won't, it's just me and my best friend, taking care of each other and watching each other's backs like warriors are supposed to do for their partners in battle, and that's pretty good. I like my life okay just like that. 

Someday when I know enough and I'm bigger and stronger, I'm going to take on the people who threw my friend out. We're going to go back to the area of space he comes from, and we're going to fight. Maybe we'll take over. Maybe we'll just scare them into leaving us alone. We don't know yet. First probably I'm going to find a female to mate with and have warrior young just like me, and I'll train them and teach them with my friend's help, and they won't have to worry that their mother is weak and doesn't know how a warrior should live, because they'll have a father to teach them, like I have my friend. And then me and my whole family are going to go into battle and we're going to kick ass. That's a long time from now, though. 

I feel a little bit sorry that I can't be what my mother wishes I was. Mostly I wish she could be like me, though. I worry about her-- she's so weak, and her crew always gets her into trouble, and what's she going to do? She has no weapons. All she can do is run away fast. And my other friend lives on her, so if something bad happens, they'll probably both die. I wish I could protect them, but my other friend won't come to live with me and my mother nags me so much, I can't stay with her to protect her. She doesn't approve of me having weapons. She says it's against the will of the Builders. It really upsets her. I wish it didn't bother her so much-- I can't change what I am and I wouldn't want to either just to satisfy her stupid Builders. I'm not what they made me into-- I'm something new, and my friend says I should embrace that. 

And I do. 

THE END 


End file.
